Jakub Marek

The study focuses on the relationship between K. Jaspers and S. Kierkegaard. First, it evaluates the current scholarship regarding Jaspers’ reception of Kierkegaard’s thought; second, it offers an independent analysis of Jaspers’ early work (especially the 1909 Heimweh und Verbrechen, and then the Psychologie der Weltanschauungen). It is demonstrated that Jaspers’ early work on nostalgia presents the first case study of limit situations (Grenzsituationen). The paper traces the link between Kierkegaard’s conception of aesthetic existence and Jaspers’ concept of limit situations. It is shown that Jaspers’ study of nostalgia can be considered the original inspiration for the idea of limit situations, and that, at the same time, it was arguably Kierkegaard who had helped Jaspers to develop this germinal idea into a broader notion of limit situations.

In four major parts, this study investigates the phenomenon of scrolling. Its first task is to argue in favor of a specific quality of the experience of scrolling, distinguishing it from other forms of distraction, notably from the flow experience. Scrolling takes the shape of aimless drifting. Secondly, it investigates the phenomenon of scrolling against its relevant historical, economic, social, and cultural backdrop, with the intention of understanding scrolling as a typical phenomenon of today, rather than subscribing to a biased and superficial critique of its wastefulness or outright pathological character. The third part presents a comprehensive analysis of the temporal makeup of scrolling. Its temporality is expressed in the specific impatience of scrolling. Furthermore, scrolling amounts to a temporal reduction in the sense of favoring the present moment (and suppressing the temporal dimensions of the past and the future). The reductiveness of scrolling pertains to the semantic content as well. I argue that scrolling does not allow for certain experiences (such as, e.g., profound sadness). The temporality of scrolling is one of experiencing lived time as the permanence of passing. In the last section, I connect scrolling to boredom, and argue that scrolling accomplishes the task of allowing for an existential distractedness. In conclusion, I propose a nuanced evaluation of scrolling: in a Pascalian sense, scrolling responds to a profoundly human need of distraction. Yet I find scrolling dangerous in how easily available such distraction becomes, and in how it accustoms the users to a reductive existential experience. Scrolling, unlike art (but also, in principle, photography, movies, books), shields the user from challenging and enriching experiences.

This article revisits the existing accounts of the early Czech Kierkegaard reception. It argues that Kierkegaard has had a greater reception than previously assumed and that one must take into account the cultural and historical contexts. Two major points are made: first, the earliest Kierkegaard reception was closely related to the Czech national political struggles and Kierkegaard was used as a political argument supporting the need for a Czech national reformed Church. Second, we provide evidence for a surprising politicized Catholic reception of Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard’s critique of the Danish Lutheran Church was appropriated to attack Protestantism and support the Roman Catholic Church.